Krieg
by Jebe
Summary: An experiment with the Kampfer scenario intended to increase sophistication and allow a little more of grey morality into the picture in a larger conflict then the canon setup.
1. Chapter 1

Krieg, Chapter 1

Disclaimer:

The property Kampfer is referenced in this work. An active effort has been made to modify things so that plagiarism is avoided.

Characters are either references to fictional characters or are independently derived and hence any similarity to real persons is entirely coincidental.

[/\]

The rain came down in what he guessed could be called sheets. It was thick and consistent, but not the hard insistent rain of a proper storm instead of a downpour. Although the difference was probably the lack of serious winds as much as anything.

Natsuru shook out and collapsed his umbrella after getting under the awning of his apartment building, and simply watched the rain for a while. The steady rhythm was soothing in its own way. Work for the day was done, as was his homework courtesy of a lack of particularly heavy traffic. He could always study more, but there was a lot to be said for enjoying the little things in life when they came around.

Glancing at his wrist watch Natsuru noted that it was getting late, and hence it was best to head back to his apartment. As he fitted the key into the lock he happened to look down and noticed an odd stuffed animal sitting in front of the door to his room. It looked like a tiger with a black eyepatch, only there was a pinkish strip sewn to its belly and a little plushie knife.

Maybe it was the product of someone who modified these things? He really didn't pay attention to such things, so as far as he knew it could be something from an actual official product line. Not that he understood where the interest would be either way, although it was kind of cute in its own odd way once you got past the fact it was implicitly messed up.

As far as he knew there wasn't any children or people who did such things in the apartment complex though. Bending down he picked it up, hoping to see some clue as to the identity of the owner, and found it was sitting on what was now a slightly damp note.

%

Natsuru Senou:

We are pleased to welcome you into our community, and offer you this gift to help you feel more at home.

%

Natsuru wasn't quite sure what to make of that other then whoever was responsible had clearly intended him to pick it up. He'd been in this particular apartment for almost a year now so it didn't make sense as some kind of house warming gift, and he couldn't think of anyone he knew who would do something like this. A quick sniff didn't reveal any unusual odors, nor did it feel like there was anything unusual when squishing it. Given how small it was that quickly ruled out the first possibility that came to his puzzled mind.

After a few more minutes of thought, and verifying there wasn't someone waiting in the eaves, he decided he might as well simply bring it in. It seemed harmless enough, and might actually lend some character to his otherwise largely bare apartment. And ultimately the simple fact was that he had better things to do then stand out here looking a gift stuffed animal in the stuffing.

Setting it on the table he went about his usual nightly routine.

[/\]

Natsuru woke up feeling sick. It looked like playing with expired food was catching up to him again. Dragging himself out of bed he blearily headed to the restroom. His head felt like some big swirly thing he wasn't coherent enough to put a name to right now.

After depositing several offerings into the porcelain commode and hacking up a few times when there didn't seem to really be anything more to come up his stomach seemed to decide it might calm down enough for him to get back to sleep. Washing up he blearily noted the reflection looked weird before dragging himself back towards where his nice warm bed awaited his joyful return.

Collapsing more then laying on the bed he had the odd sensation of something bouncing on his chest in a not exactly painless fashion. He normally would have simply left it be favoring sweet, sweet sleep but it felt like some connective tissue on his chest was sore almost like what sometimes happened to his elbows, wrists, and shoulders when the manager decided a good bit of particularly heavy loads needed to be moved around. It was the feeling of tissues strained due to having to deal with unusual work.

And so he unconsciously raised a hand and started working the offending tissues a little bit to help clear things up, when his hand bumped into something. Only he felt his hand bumping into said something, through whatever said something was as well. Only there shouldn't be a something projecting from his chest like that.

Natsuru was almost willing to leave that until morning, only when he shifted posture so he could have the area resting on a pillow things just felt… weird. And then a cascade of hair fell down tickling the sides of his face and the back of his neck in the process. Which also made no sense as he'd never allowed his hair to theoretically approach such a length. Tugging at it however did not simply result in it leaving his head, as would a wig. No, it actually felt like he was trying to pull his own hair out.

Somewhat more awake thanks to all these things getting in the way of his successfully returning to sleep, Natsuru idly played with the strands for s few seconds. The whole time the feeling of which was they were legitimately attached to his head, just like whatever the other thing was. None of it was really making any sense, but he saw no particular reason to make a real issue of it. He felt comfortable enough to get back to sleep now, and had every intention of doing so.

[/\]

Natsuru woke up still feeling sick, although it was at a level he believed he could manage well enough. Mussing his hair he found it to be the normal length, and so put the nights events behind him. His routine was shortened thanks to not wanting to aggravate his already unsettled stomach leading to him forgoing a breakfast consisting of much more than some fruit juice.

[/\]

Natsuru stood at the bus stop, waiting as usual for the bus that would transport him to school with some time to spare. What apartments were within easy walking distance of the school were simply too expensive. On the upside sometimes he'd manage to talk to Sakura, thanks to her house being in the general area.

That simply wasn't to be today though. It looked like…

*ka-click* While technically he'd never heard the real sound it was unmistakably the sound of hammer being cocked. His mind went blank as a zillion various thoughts suddenly started fighting at once on what to do.

"It looks like you actually have your head on straight." A girl whose face was obscured by dark hair observed, before cocking her hand to one side leading to the pistol disappearing into thin air.

Natsuru simply stared more dumbfounded then before for several long minutes at the air which had moment before been occupied by a steel framed pistol.

"They didn't tell you anything did they?" She said knowingly with her head canted slightly to the side.

Natsuru simply shook his head.

She followed up with: "I imagine you're in for a surprise if you look down then." and a wink.

Natsuru wasn't sure he wanted to look and see what she was referring to, but his curiosity got the better of him. It took several minutes for him to puzzle out the existence of a black triangle with white piping, white poking out from the edges, and blue tails where there should have been a simple white dress shirt. As the clues started to come together he made a point to look up and not think about it.

"The cliff notes version is that you've just been drafted. There's nothing that says you have to kill anybody, but there will be plenty of people out to kill you. In addition to the psychos will be people motivated by the fact aggregate Kampfer kills allow you to enhance your abilities as a Kampfer and better survive."

"Why is…" He mentally refused to finish that thought.

The girl simply shrugged. "Because our mysterious sponsors say so."

[/\]

The various looks and effects of the various bumps made it rather hard to deny what if he was honest with himself Natsuru already realized. The girl he'd met at the bus stop meanwhile seemed to simply fade into the background with no one taking note of her. When he'd thought to ask who she was, she'd simply told him that she was the Mouse that Roared and seemed uninterested in elaborating on that or revealing her real name.

They arrived at the stop in front of the academy in a timely fashion, and the Mouse simply walked off the bus like nothing was amiss. When Natsuru managed to sift through the crowd and also get off the bus, she was nowhere to be seen. He counseled himself that wasn't a problem although lingering thoughts about something he was trying very hard to ignore were starting to make the point that complications were imminent.

As the crowd thinned out, and indecision left him standing where he was, it revealed a girl with long white hair that had an aura of danger about her. He had the feeling she was stalking him as he started to edge towards the school in response. As the crowd thinned out enough that no one was looking their way, he felt a sudden impact drive him to the ground, and something sink into his shoulder.

[/\]

Natsuru groggily came to, finding himself surrounded by desks and various other supplies in a room dimly lit by cracks in whatever was covering the windows. He was having a hard time focusing on anything in particular.

Trying to move revealed he'd been tied up, with something… that was white and stringy, and reminded him ever so much of what a spider did to insects that it caught in its web.

Not good. He tried scooting towards some stacked desks on theory it would at least buy him some time. It however was not to be as the door suddenly opened revealing the white haired girl backlit against the glaring lights in the hallway. Noting him she calmly and carefully closed the door behind her.

"I didn't expect you'd be up yet." She said with a disturbing air of casualness.

He needed to do something. Now. As if in response something seemed to well up from inside of him, and suddenly his bonds fell away crackling with fire.

"A Zauber." The white haired girl said appreciatively as she began stalking forward. He really didn't like the way she if anything simply seemed to be more eager in that vicious predatory way. She didn't seem the least bit intimidated by him and it was sapping what little confidence he had of being able to successfully defend himself.

Just as a pair of daggers suddenly materialized in her hands a voice rang out. "I can't let you do that."

The white haired girl whirled around and tried to attack with her daggers only to have them intercepted by a pair of pistols with long tubes on their ends and blood erupted from both of the white haired girl's shoulders accompanied by a weird sound. The daggers fell to the floor from nerveless fingers as the Mouse simply stepped back and steadied her aim.

"You're not really a bright one are you? The forged steel frame on these is thicker then your blades, and I just have to point at you. You on the other hand need to not only touch me, but execute a solid blow." The cold condescension was almost palpable.

The white haired girl started scooting back, blood oozing from her shoulders.

"If you want her kills here's your chance, newbie." Natsuru took a moment to realize she was talking to him. Even though she'd been ready to kill him moments before, he found the thought of killing her now repulsive. That scared pleading look of hers simply sapped away what little real motivation he had to do so.

"No thanks."

The dark hair girl cocked her head to the side considering this before shrugging and turning her attention back towards the white haired girl. "Then consider this a warning Spider-san. If you start poaching on the newbies again I may have to punish you." Natsuru wasn't quite sure how she managed to pull off that maliciously threatening aura while keeping that sweet expression on her face the whole time, other then the finger wag and sweetly emphasizing her words might have something to do with it.

As the threat of imminent death started to wear off Natsuru found it was starting to get difficult to stand properly. Mouse slipped under one of his arms helping to stabilize him before he realized she'd actually moved.

"Sorry about the whole setting you up as bait thing." She said after they'd left the storage room behind.

That aspect of things hadn't actually occurred to him, although that was as much thanks to not really having had the time to mentally review the events as much as anything. "You set me up as bait?" He said before his brain caught up with his mouth.

"Yeah, that girl's been poaching on the newbies. She grabs them fresh off the bus and kills them to rack up kills. You hadn't unlocked your power when she nabbed you so didn't count as a kill yet. To a gamer like her racking up the kills is everything." They stopped in front of the Infirmary. "I have someone I'd like you to meet. She should come to see you shortly."

[/\]

Natsuru woke up and realized that whatever poison the Spider had used on him apparently hadn't run its course, as he didn't remember actually lying down. At least his head finally felt reasonably clear, instead of like it was filled with cotton balls.

Looking around he noticed an aqua green haired girl who was dozing away while sitting next to the bed he was lying on. Or… A quick glance informed him he was fully justified in doubting his current rights to the male pronoun. Which he was going to go back to pretending wasn't happening now.

Getting up he looked around to see if there was a nurse present, only to find he was apparently alone with this girl. Sitting on the bed he debated whether to wake her up, and how to go about it. She looked so peaceful like that, he was having a hard time convincing himself he shouldn't just leave her alone. So he just sat there, and in the process let all the various mental background chatter begin to catch up with him.

In the span of maybe eight hours he had, had his world turned upside down and vigorously shaken, and… It suddenly occurred to him that if he couldn't get his body back shortly that he'd need to go to work like this and under some story of standing in for himself. While the manager would undoubtedly be fine with that, he was never going to hear the end of this. On the other hand if he was simply stuck like this it might not be that bad, ignoring that he'd have to listen to people talking about his now former self in less then complimentary ways.

Oh wait… This was a girl's body, which meant that… Not going to think about that right now. So not going to think about that.

"You have the strangest expression on your face."

Natsuru turned to the source of the voice to find that the very attractive green haired girl had apparently woken up on her own, and was looking at him curiously. "It's nothing." He sheepishly said trying to brush it off.

Her piercing green eyes seemed to see right through him, but she let it go. "I'm Hitomi Minagawa."

"Natsuru Senou." Natsuru blurted out before realizing that maybe he shouldn't have simply thrown his real name out there. The handshake was firm, and he almost felt she was trying to size up his willingness to fight her.

"Yureka said she thought we'd make a good team." She said in a manner very much in contrast with her previous severity.

"Yureka?" Natsuru said dumbly, once more before his brain caught up with him. That seemed to be happening a lot today.

Hitomi stared at him for a second, before suppressing a small giggle. "What did she call herself this time?"

"You mean Mouse?" He asked after a few seconds worth of contemplation.

Hitomi laughed some more, shaking her head before stretching out her limbs. "I don't think anyone really knows anything about her." Suddenly turning serious she raised a hand which contained what looked like a ball of lightning. "So what do you do?"

Natsuru tried to remember how he'd summoned the flames before, and actually managed to pull off a fireball… which then blew up in his face.

Hitomi was clearly trying to suppress a laugh. "You're a natural." Natsuru wasn't quite sure if that was intended as a compliment or a insult.

Seeing the expression on his face she waved him off. "Don't worry. It's still your first day."

[/\]

The worst part of all this was that, due to the fact he was a orphan that was considered self sufficient, he had to go to work. Yes, in theory he had sick days, but his boss wasn't the most understanding person ever about people suddenly not showing up. As he would say "if you're not helping you're just making it harder for everyone else." Thankfully the corollary for his policy that you weren't allowed to make things harder for everyone else with consequences, was that he was very understanding and accepting of people being sent in as alternates. Who if they worked better then the person they were standing in for, he would often try to hire.

That still meant he need to think of an alternate name, as his boss wouldn't hear of there being a girl Natsuru and he didn't need to additional questions that would bring. So what could he come up with that would be close enough he wouldn't get himself in trouble for not responding to his "name?" Let's see… Natsuko? No, it wasn't quite what he was going for. Natsumi? That was even worse, way too domesticated. Natsuki? That would work.

[/\]

"Hi, I'm Natsuki Senou and I'll be standing in for my cousin Natsuru." Natsuru said his most sincere voice, from behind his most sincere smile.

"Uniforms are over there." He didn't even bother to look up from whatever the paperwork was that he was working on, and instead simply pointed in the general direction of the girl's locker room. "Ayami will bring you up to speed."

As such things went that had went about as well as could be expected. It could have been worse. He could have assigned him to Megumi who he'd known since childhood, instead of Ayami who he'd said maybe ten words to in the entire time he'd worked here. Yes, that was mostly because she was a bitch he couldn't stand to be around, but under the current situation not having to answer questions he didn't believe the answer to himself was preferable to just having someone fuss at him and try to make his life hell.

[/\]

Natsuru rubbed her temples. The past few hours had led to him abandoning his attempts to ignore he was currently in a very attractive female body, as people kept reminding him of that fact enough even attempting to stay in denial in principle was an exercise in futility. So yeah, her. Which hopefully was going to stay skin deep, even though he was already noticing small things in his perception that were… off.

And he did not eep. It was a very manly scream of surprise before he righteously punished the guy who'd grabbed his… her butt. All without even a hint of an eep or a girly scream.

Pulling his keys out of his skirt pocket Natsuru unlocked his door as always, and opened it to find the little stuffed tiger from before sitting there on a the heated table he kept there. He didn't remember putting it there, but whatever.

"Hey there, Tiger-san." He said waving as he began to step through the door.

"Hey, Natsuru-chan." The stuffed animal responded, while waving back.

He so did not eep as he slammed the door closed. That was something else entirely.

"Hey are you okay?" One of his neighbor's asked as they poked their head out.

"Yes, everything's just fine." Natsuru said with his best forced reassuring smile. "I was just surprised, that's all."

They seemed to debate it for a while before deciding that they had better things to do.

Natsuru sighed before opening the door again. The stuffed animal once again looking entirely inanimate except for a cup of tea steaming away that really shouldn't be there. This time he made the point to close the door behind him before continuing to the kitchen. He needed something to steady his nerves.

"I already poured you a cup of tea." That almost sounded like…

"You really know how to pick them Sakura. This guy's supposed to be a tiger?"

Sakura gave Yureka a withering glance, before putting on a pleasant face aimed in his direction. "Yureka tells me she _arranged _for you to have a rather stressful day. I apologize for her _antics._" That seemed as much aimed at Yureka as him, who seemed to be entirely unfazed by the implications thrown her way.

The two of them were sitting on the cushions around his heated table, each with their own cups of tea, despite him being certain they weren't there only seconds before.

"If you're not going to drink this can I have it?" The stuffed animal asked, casually waving a paw at him.

This was just too much. How was a stuffed animal even supposed to drink tea. "I'm losing my mind. That's it."

"I told you the stuffed animal was too much." Yureka commented as if she was talking about the weather.

"But he's so cute, if you take the time to appreciate it." Sakura said disappointedly.

Natsuru had opted to effectively hide behind the counter, where Sakura sat next to him. "I'm sorry about all this. _She_ wasn't supposed to do anything like that."

"I got his feet wet, just like you asked." Yureka's voice came from the other side of the counter.

"You threw him off a cliff to see if he could fly." Sakura shot back.

"And he did."

Sakura closed her eyes in annoyance. "It's okay Natsuru, I'm here for you." She said while putting an arm around his shoulder.

"No, this can't be happening. People don't appear out of thin air." Sakura hugged him a little tighter in response.

"Yureka?" Sakura said with false sweetness.

"Yes?" Came the response back in an utterly casual manner.

"Why did you cover us with that cloak power of yours?" This time the malice was stopping just short of boiling over.

"Because it's fun." Again with oblivious casualness.

A ball appeared in Sakura's hand, which she tossed up behind her, and after bouncing off the ceiling there was a short exclamation of pain.

[/\]

Once Natsuru, still stuck in this female form he'd been in since this morning, had pulled himself back together, which had so not involved him bawling his eyes out on the shoulder of his one and only childhood friend for half an hour, he sat down with a fresh cup of tea. The stuffed animal having apparently managed to somehow consume the cup that had been sitting in front of it.

"So it's actually moving on its own?" Natsuru finally said.

"Yes, isn't he cute?" Sakura said, like it was perfectly normal to have a stuffed animal moving on its own.

"So, why me?" Natsuru finally got up the courage to ask after delaying for several minutes.

"Because Sakura likes boys that have been turned into girls and are embarrassed about it. Twice the…" Yureka was interrupted by a red ball bouncing off her forehead, smacking into the ceiling and bouncing off the wall, and then nailing her again on the forehead where her head ended up.

Covering the scathing glare she sent Yureka's way, Sakura put on her usual civil front. "There's been an increase in psychos killing the uninvolved recently, and _they_ chose you. It was the only way I could protect you. Making you a Kampfer marks you as a target, but at least you can fight back." Sakura idly stirred her rose hip tea, which Natsuru made sure to keep in stock for those rare times when she came over.

"I think I understand but what do you mean psychos?"

Yureka answered that one. "The Kampfer system increases aggressiveness and regenerative capabilities, in addition to somehow making it so people forget about anyone you kill. Some of those selected just start murdering people for no particular reason, we call them psychos. Then there's the gamers who are tracking to rack up kills by gaming the system one way or another.

The reality is most Kampfer end up dying to one or the other without realizing what's really going on. Those who don't are either Ace material or very good at keeping a low profile, and neither of those is a guarantee you'll actually last long.

Speaking of which, where is Hitomi?"

Natsuru shrugged. "She lives in the opposite direction."

"Who's Hitomi?" Sakura interjected shooting a look in Yureka's direction.

"Another newbie like our friend here, Lightning Zauber affinity. Given he's Fire Zauber affinity I thought they'd work well together."

Sakura looked like she was about to make an issue of it and then sighed. "I guess it can't be helped."

Author's Notes:

I felt like a change of pace so decided to add another scenario Kampfer experiment to my project inventory. If anything this should actually tend to help with regular production, as the limiting factors are not related to typing speed but puzzling out implementation which becomes easier instead of harder when working from multiple approaches.

This was partially inspired by people wanting to increase the scope of things and those who commented on the lack of more serious elements. Hence the scope has been increased, the conflict has been shifted into a realm of grey, and an effort has been made to increase the depth and sophistication of the characters. That may or may not actually work out, but hey Frizzle Motto.

V2 Notes:

The revisions mainly revolved around some minor additions, revolving around things I thought I'd already added. This draft also benefits from additional proofreading.


	2. Chapter 2

Krieg, Chapter 1

Disclaimer:

The property Kampfer is referenced in this work. An active effort has been made to modify things so that plagiarism is avoided.

Characters are either references to fictional characters or are independently derived and hence any similarity to real persons is entirely coincidental.

[/\]

"The good news is you can change back. The bad news is that you need to have three kills before you can do that, and five before you'll really be able to control it. So unless you fancy yourself an Ace, you're going to spend the rest of your life sitting down to pee." Yureka took another sip of her tea. "To be more precise you've undergone a very sophisticated and far reaching transformation. That significant of a change leads to issues with minimizing the shock, which can't be practically done without the control granted by the 3rd and 5th level lock release. As a result the system will keep that feature locked down to prevent you from hurting yourself."

"There's more to this story, isn't there?" Yureka's eyes seemed to light up as Natsuru shared his little bit of insight.

"Yes. Technically you don't need kills to release the locks, it's just a lot faster and easier then the training and personal discipline to do it directly. So practically no one ever does it." Yureka started staring off into space as she finished.

"Don't worry, _we_'ll help you through this." Sakura said trying to be reassuring. She wasn't really successful as Natsuru was more focused on the problem that either way he'd have to achieve the impossible if he was ever going to get his body back.

"The other good news is that you'll end up a stronger Kampfer because you were born male. On the flipside the whole system is just going to be a whole lot less natural for you to use because you weren't born female. It's the way _they_ keep it all nice and balanced."

Natsuru took a moment to try to process all that, failed and decided to just give up on that for the moment.

[/\]

Natsuru sputtered sending tea flying. In many ways he'd just lucked out that this apartment happened to have a separate bedroom and as a result it wasn't exactly big. How were they going to sleep over?

"I'll take the kitchen, you can have the hall, and Kaede can sleep in your room." Yureka lightly suggested.

"Why does Natsuru have to sleep in the hall?" Sakura shot back.

"Because you don't have the best track record in keeping your hands to yourself." Yureka said simply.

Sakura glared balefully at Yureka.

Yureka was unimpressed. "Go ahead. Tell me I'm a mass murderer all you want. About the people I killed in their sleep, and don't forget the things that were done to me by…"

"Enough." Sakura was livid. "Not another word."

Yureka's gaze was hard as she stood up. For a moment Natsuru thought she was going to slap Sakura, but instead she simply said "I wash my hands of this." and left.

[/\]

Natsuru had a feeling that Yureka was present as he stepped outside, although the notion seemed absurd. Feeling rather silly he opined to the open air that, "You got rather heated back there."

Natsuru felt someone's gaze on him, unsurprisingly without any visible source. He tried to come up with something to follow up on that. "I don't think you did that for no reason."

As if in response the sunlight emphasized an ethereal outline of a black haired girl looking over her shoulder while leaning on the railing. It was so insubstantial that Natsuru wasn't sure it hadn't been there before, and he just hadn't noticed it. "Could you…"

Yureka seemed slightly bemused. "The thing is this is my natural form, if you can call it that, and I'm not in the mood to put out the extra energy." She was now very quiet, but he could still hear her just fine.

"I suppose you want to know what that was all about?" She said now repositioning herself so she was leaning backwards on the rail while holding it with both hands.

Left without anything else to really say Natsuru nodded.

"You're the fifth guy she's done this to, and she despite her aspirations to the contrary she wasn't able to keep her claws off any of them. It all starts when she wants to 'help' them with adapting, so she 'tweaks' a few things, and then she starts 'helping' them with other things and somewhere along the lines she loses what she was supposed to be protecting so they get dumped and its on to the next one.

Your only edge in all this is that she's always seen you as her anchor, while the others were just guys she took a fancy to. She says this time will be different, and I don't believe it will be." She was slightly more visible, although Natsuru could still easily see through her.

"What do you mean 'help?' "

Yureka seemed to be sadly shaking her head. "The problem is you only remember the after."

She was quiet for a moment, but before he could say anything she started talking again. "You want an object example of why Mental Zauber are dangerous, then I am one. My memory only goes back as far as when my latest Master broke enough of my programming for me to be in a state you could really call self-aware. It took me months just to understand her expectations didn't involve me killing something, capturing someone, or gathering intelligence while fading into the background. While my combat skills and academic knowledge were kept intact the rest of me had been written and overwritten so many times that nothing of the original remains."

The admission had clearly cost her quite a bit, but she wasn't quite done. "Don't end up like me. Don't end up where you can only relate to the journals of your original on an intellectual level, because that isn't you." And with that if Natsuru hadn't just seen her, he would have been sure she was never there as there was just nothing.

[/\]

Natsuru awoke to the sound of thunder and sheets of rain pounding against the building by the howling wind. Groggily getting to his feet trudged in an uncoordinated fashion towards the kitchen. The last thing he needed was for what few electronic appliances he did have to get fried.

While scooting himself out from under the computer desk his eye caught sight of what looked like someone drying themselves off with a towel. To his still half asleep mind that didn't make any sense. .. Unless he was being burglarized.

Coming up empty in his attempt to think of anything he might use to fight these apartment invaders, he tried to stealthily catch a glance so at the very least he might identify them to the police. Creeping up to the kitchen island he quickly peeked around the edge to behold a girl in nothing but an oversized wet t-shirt…

"Hey there newbie. Pretty aggressive storm, huh?" The hot dripping wet girl said in friendly voice with a joking undertone.

Natsuru's mind was having trouble trying to even begin to make any sense out of this. There was a hot girl wearing effectively nothing in his apartment who seemed to like him. What alternate reality had he fallen into, and did he even want to return?

Finishing her attempts at drying her hair with one of his towels the girl proceeded to boldly peel her shirt off revealing nothing underneath but a pair of panties. His mind began shutting down under the number of things that weren't making any sense as he couldn't tear his eyes away from those beautiful bouncing breasts.

[/\]

Yureka glanced curiously at where Kaede's latest soon to be conquest had fallen from behind the counter island. Following her gaze it appeared the now not quite male was currently rather mesmerized with her breasts. Odd.

Walking over to the newbie that was now lying on her side, she carefully undid the top buttons of the button down shirt she'd went to bed with, and yes it was as she suspected.

She leaned in and in a conspiratorial voice said. "You have a nicer pair then I do." Before leaning back into a more normal sitting position.

The resultant confusion and shock playing over the newbie's face more or less explained what had just happened. You could call it amnesia if you wanted to be ineloquent about it, but all it really boiled down to was temporary forgetfulness driven by something they were trying to avoid and were able to effectively escape. She saw it all the time with newbies. It usually led to the death of people who should have known better then to get taken down the way they were.

Still this was the first time she'd really had one of Kaede's boy toys like this, and she was honestly kind of curious. Pulling the newbie up into a sitting position, she honestly asked, "So, do you prefer looking at my breasts or your breasts?"

Still clearly confused the question none the less prompted the newbie into looking at both sets and from the reactions the answer was clear. He wasn't able to objectify the breasts as being separate from himself, and so the response was confusion as he skittered around his mental cage trying to make sense of it all. Hers however were clearly attached to what could identified as a girl and hence didn't require nearly as much skittering. That however brought up another question.

Leaning in close she asked, "What if I was Sakura?"

About this point she noticed that the newbie was uncomfortably fidgeting as she held her legs tightly together. It took her a second to realize just what she was looking at, which had nothing to do with an overfilled bladder. It kind of reminded her of her cat when she'd first got her and spring had come around. Both were being driven by instincts they didn't understand, which was making the world start to fall in upon them as a result. It was a sad sight to behold really.

So she drew the newbie into a hug, and chopped the point on her neck that would knock her out before carrying her off to bed.

[/\]

Natsuru groggily woke up from the stream of dreams involving a weird but hot goth girl, a mercurial green haired girl, a weird spider girl, and Kaede that that were both bizarre and sexual in nature with him often somehow ending up as a girl. Or at least having breasts as some of them seemed to have some interesting notions regarding anatomy. He really didn't want to dwell on them or what they might imply about him or his sanity.

Glancing at his clock he noticed it was Saturday and after a moments consideration decided this time he'd just sleep in.

[/\]

Kaede watched as Natsuru collapsed back into her pillow. While she preferred not to make it a habit to monitor other people's thoughts she hadn't been able to help but intrude when Natsuru was sleeping so poorly. She really hadn't liked what she'd found.

Walking back to the kitchen she sat across from Yureka and tried glaring at her for a few minutes, which seemed to have no effect whatsoever on her cheery demeanor. "Yureka, why is Natsuru dreaming about you dressed up as a Goth?"

Yureka looked at her seriously in a way that left Kaede suspecting she wasn't going to like the response. "Do I make a hot Goth?" Yureka asked with what at least appeared to be sincere curiosity.

"Yes." Kaede managed to grind out.

Yureka shrugged her shoulders and glanced out the window, effectively saying apparently that was just the way it was then. Kaede was not particularly pleased with that response. Just as she was about to say something, Yureka spoke up and asked "So what is he imagining you as?"

Kaede sputtered remembering a few of the things she had been imagined doing. "That's not the point."

"So what is the point? In the last 24 hours he's had his world turned utterly upside down, been drafted into a war he didn't even know existed, and had most of the things he's anchored himself to forcibly uprooted. If the worst that you can complain about in his trying to adapt to that is he's playing dress up in his dreams, during the usual period of denial, I don't see the problem."

"I didn't say anything about him being in denial." Kaede said dangerously, recognizing the opening for what it was.

"There always in…" Yureka stopped seeing the look on her face. "Fine." She said with a sigh of annoyance.

"What happened?" Kaede said with more force then she would have preferred to have had to use.

"There was a storm last night, which you somehow managed to sleep through." Kaede glanced at her in annoyance and Yureka rolled her eyes. "I went outside to check it out and got soaked in the process. When I came back in the newbie was under her computer desk fiddling with the cords. I got a towel from her bathroom and opted to dry myself off in the kitchen because I was bored and she was up." Kaede glared, and Yureka responded with a skunk eye saying. "It wasn't like that."

"The newbie apparently had forgotten we were here and that she was now a she. She tried to sneak up on me, and then went deer in the headlights after I removed my shirt." Yureka cocked her head to the side in a way that conveyed "really?" as Kaede glared at her again. "I was soaking wet and I didn't see what the issue was. So I confirmed she had the nicer rack and pointed that fact out to her, where it became obvious he didn't realize he was currently in a female body."

"And then what?"

"I was honestly curious so I confirmed a few things, before realizing that she was squirming and it wasn't because she had to go to the bathroom."

"You didn't." Kaede said with more resignation then accusation at this point.

"Yeah, I knocked her out." Yureka just blinked at Kaede's dumbfounded expression. "What? Was I supposed to just let her suffer like that, not really understanding what was happening to her?"

Kaede pointedly looked somewhere else in response to Yureka's questioning gaze. Yureka pinched the bridge of her nose. "Is that how you usually justify sexual assault?"

[/\]

Natsuru woke up to find an empty apartment with a note taped to the refrigerator that Sakura had made breakfast for him and that he should meet her later today in order to do some shopping. He leaned against the fridge looking down at a pair of objects that shouldn't be there, but he was finally resigned to being real. He was glad that at least she'd arranged things to give him his day off to try to come to terms with everything.

Part of his brain pointed out that a lot of people had it far worse than waking up to find they'd had their body dramatically modified. Like all those wars in… Oh... right. Or those people starving… like he was going to be if anyone started asking questions about where the documentation for "Natsuki" Senou was, which was going to come up sooner or later. This really wasn't helping.

Despite the fact he was being treated to delicious a meal prepared by Sakura herself, he really couldn't stir up much enthusiasm. Yesterday he was a bystander in a war he was unaware of that was just struggling to get by. Now he was a target with the only upside that being that he could theoretically fight back if he actually managed to figure out how to use these powers.

"My life sucks." Natsuru declared throwing himself down on the table.

"Why?" Said a little voice. Glancing up Natsuru noticed the stuffed tiger was looking at him expectantly while making a point to actively defy all his attempts to pretend it was an inanimate object .

Looking at in resignation he said. "For starters there's no paper trail for a Natsuki Senou."

The toy looked at him with a smug grin. Pulling off its best Yakuza impression it declared. "There is now."

Natsuru just looked at the thing.

"You're also entitled to the free uniform repair and summoning services to better enable you to maintain your cover."

Natsuru doubtfully looked askance at it, before saying. "What? I can summon my work uniform now too?"

The stuffed animal displayed a devious smile it shouldn't have even been able to pull off as Natsuru felt _something_ happen. Looking down he saw he was now in the uniform he wore yesterday only with Natsuki nicely embroidered where the name tag should be. Walking over to the mirror he noticed that his now rather long hair didn't look like a disorderly mop anymore.

"School, work… "What… am I now Cutey Honey or something?"

He felt the _something_ happen and looked to see that this female body he was no inhabiting had in fact been dressed up as Cutey Honey complete with prop sword. It was however a sad day when he was thankful they hadn't messed with her hair by cutting it to the length usually associated with said costume.

He threw the sword at the stuffed animal, which disappeared before impact leaving him as he'd been before disorderly hair and all.

[/\]

Natsuru looked away, red with embarrassment, as Sakura pulled back the hood of the hoody style sweatshirt the Natsuru had shown up in. "I tried to brush it out." Natsuru tried to explain like she'd committed some great crime.

Natsuru's hair was an unruly mess. Kaede found the situation rather endearing actually. Natsuru's old clothes were too big for her, and didn't really suit her anymore. That she'd discovered she could have issues with the long hair she'd ended up with just fit and gave her an excuse to make a detour she'd been wanting to make anyway.

"Don't worry we'll take you to a hair salon and they'll fix it." Kaede said with a smile as she put the hood back up, resisting the urge to give her a kiss.

"But…" Natsuru started to object.

"No, I insist. It's my treat."

[/\]

Mhmmm. Sakura had insisted that she get the works and Natsuru had to admit that it felt rather nice as the woman had massaged her scalp. When she'd asked about it before entering the salon he'd decided to defer to Sakura on the issue of style and cut telling her that he really had no idea. Sakura had then sold it to the clerk as her friend needing a makeover.

"Have you ever had someone else wash your hair before?"

Natsuru blinked, glancing around before focusing on the stylist.

"I'll take that as a no." She said with a smile. "So how would you like it cut?"

"I don't really know about the styles. Sakura…"

"That's right you wanted your friend to help you choose."

[/\]

"I think she likes it." The stylist said playfully to her.

Kaede looked at Natsuru staring at herself in the mirror with a look of awe and disbelief. It looked like Natsuru was beginning to appreciate her new body. She leaned in next to Natsuru's ear and whispered. "Let's get you some clothes."

[/\]

Natsuru felt very confused as Sakura led him into the women's clothing department. Part of his mind was looking at the outfits and evaluating how they'd look on her. That wasn't strange so much in terms of looking at potential outfits. He cared enough about his appearance to consider such things before buying his clothes. This time however the clothes were for a very attractive girl that also happened to be him.

"Where are we going?" He asked as Sakura kept walking past the outfits.

"Well we have to create the proper foundation don't we?" Sakura said cryptically.

[/\]

"Do we really have to do this?" Natsuru asked as they entered the changing room.

Sakura hugged her from behind. "Don't worry, it's me."

He relaxed at little but that really didn't put his mind at ease as he peeled off the sweatshirt and t-shirt. He turned to look behind him. "How long is this going to take?" Sakura smiled and he felt something cinch into place. She glanced down and scribbled on a piece of paper.

"There you go. That wasn't so hard was it?" Sakura whispered. Natsuru felt her cheeks burning as the tape cinched into place under her breasts.

After Sakura noted the number she hugged Natsuru from behind. Natsuru relaxed into her grip. "You're very shy aren't you?"

Natsuru felt her cheeks start to burn again. "Sakura…"

[/\]

Natsuru blushed as she rotated around for Sakura. She was wearing tight fitting pants that went down to slightly below the knee, a t-shirt, and a striped blue tank top over it. Part of her that she was trying to disown wanted to try on a dress that had caught her eye to see what she looked like in it. She was already more than a little embarrassed to look in the mirror after catching a glimpse of what she looked like in an outfit that fit her curves.

"You look good." Sakura said holding her gently as they both looked into the mirror.

[/\]

Natsuru caught herself staring at her reflection in the glass as they left the store. Sakura had bought her a few outfits, and while she was still utterly embarrassed by this it felt better to have some support and clothes that fit. Natsuru jumped a someone touched her from behind.

Looking back sheepishly she saw that Sakura had hugged her from behind again. "Is there something wrong with liking the way you look?" She asked smiling at her.

"But I'm…"

"Wearing clothes the suit and fit you. It's not like you're going to change back anytime soon."

"I…"

"You're allowed to look good." Natsuru had to admit Sakura had a point. It wasn't the best outfit they'd picked out, but she still looked good. Natsuru allowed herself to look at herself in the mirror.

"There's a movie I've been wanting to see. How about we go see it together?" Sakura asked disrupting her reverie.

A movie sounded good.

[/\]

Sakura had offered to hold one of the bags, and they'd held hands to better avoid getting lost in the crowds. There'd even been a few guys that had tried to ask them out, which Sakura had quickly shut down and then teased her about after they were out of earshot.

"Girl's night out?" The ticket clerk asked as they approached.

Natsuru started to say something and then thought better of it. As far as the rest of the world was concerned that was exactly what they were doing.

"My friend is a little shy. Can I get two for the newest Entrails Animals movie." Sakura responded.

"Sure, enjoy."

[/\]

The movie was actually rather good once you got over the premise that the entrails animals were alive. Given what was currently guarding her apartment that wasn't quite the stretch it should have been. The backstory was a play on the old princess and prince stories common to fairy tales, but that wasn't really the focus of the story. The real focus of the movie was the problems the entrails animals came across and how they dealt with them on their quest to save the princess who like so many princesses before her had been kidnapped.

It was played in a self aware tongue in cheek fashion with the large team of entrails animals each in turn dying to allow the rest of the team to continue on. Sometimes it was just one, sometimes it was a group, but they always died.

They died. Natsuru looked around sickened as the audience laughed as the next group of entrails animals died to deal with the latest obstacle.

"I need to use the restroom." She said quickly.

[/\]

If there was one good thing about this body it was that the appropriate restrooms had plenty of stalls appropriate to her throwing up in. She hadn't realized just how much it had effected her until she'd stopped for a moment then she really had needed a restroom. The dry heaves finally stopped, and she cleaned herself up after exiting the stall. She'd seen worse things then that in movies before, but for some reason this had cut a lot closer then those ever had.

"I'm sorry."

It took her a minute to recognize the voice as Sakura's. "For what?" She responded trying to cover up her little incident.

She felt Sakura's hand rest comfortingly on her shoulder. "For being insensitive."

"You weren't being insensitive. I…" Natsuru felt something gently press against her lips, and realized that Sakura had kissed her.

"What's this? You're all weak kneed from a little kiss?" Sakura teased as Sakura held her close.

It took her a few tries before she managed be able to form a coherent word. "Sakura?"

Sakura smiled at her. "Have I told you that you're cute when you're embarrassed?"

Cute? Sakura giggled, and Natsuru realized she was acting flustered which served to exacerbate the situation. Sakura sighed happily and Natsuru realized where Sakura was placing her head as she hugged her closer.

They stayed like that for several minutes, Sakura seemingly content to wait for her to be able to coherently say something. Amazingly no one walked in to see them having their moment. Natsuru wasn't sure she would have been able to handle that on top of everything else.

"You like me?" Natsuru finally managed.

"Of course I like you, silly. You've always been there for me." Sakura responded while snuggling up to her.

"I think I need to sit down." Natsuru finally managed.

[/\]

Sakura helped her to the food court. Natsuru felt humiliated by needing her to help her walk in public, which had only served to further exacerbate the problem. Sakura pulled back a chair for her, and she gladly took it.

"I'm sorry." She managed.

"About what?"

"You had to carry me all the way over here."

Sakura reached for and held her hand. "It wasn't a problem, Natsuru." Clearly changing gears Sakura looked at her conspiratorially and asked. "So how have you liked our date so far?"

Natsuru looked at Sakura in confusion. "Date?"

Sakura smiled at her, "We went shopping, saw a movie, we kissed, and now we're going to eating together. What would you like to call it?" She teased.

"You're teasing me too much."

"Okay, okay where would you like to eat then?"

[/\]

Natsuru looked wistfully at Sakura as she entered her apartment. Ignoring that little incident, she'd really enjoyed herself.

"Don't you find it odd she's suddenly taken an interest?"

Natsuru recognizing the voice didn't bother to look around. "You followed us."

"The way you're looking at her says enough." Yureka responded back matter-of-factly. "I'm betting you're feeling rather feminine right now."

"So what?" Natsuru responded defensively.

Natsuru heard Yureka sigh. "You're not going to listen are you?" Her voice was more resigned then accusatory.

"She's my friend."

"I hope she justifies your trust." Yureka responded in a way that made it clear she didn't believe that would occur and started walking away from her, completely visible.

Natsuru started after her. "Wait."

She didn't even turn. "Despite what you might think newbie, I do have other responsibilities. You've made your intentions clear. I don't need you to reiterate the point."

"Give me five minutes."

Yureka stopped and looked in her direction for a long moment. "Granted." She said simply.

"Why are you visible?"

"You expect me to give you information on how my powers work for the asking?" Yureka asked skeptically.

"You really didn't follow us?"

"On your first date when you didn't ask me too? What do you take me for a voyeur?"

"But…" Natsuru felt like she should be remembering something.

Yureka regarded her for a moment as she struggled to remember. "Well that was quicker than I thought. It looks like your dear friend went ahead and gave you a little memory block." She smirked, knowingly. "Let me guess could it be my warning about what happened to her previous boy toys?"

"Why would she do that?" Natsuru asked rhetorically.

"She's probably told herself it wasn't going to be like last time and you didn't need to worry. But in the end people always lie to themselves… and others. She just happens to be a little more effective at it. She doesn't need to dominate you in order to play with you like a puppet a snip here, a push there, and you'd never know the difference.

How does it feel knowing that someone's cut out a little piece of you, and that you wouldn't have even noticed it was gone?" Yureka's voice was neither triumphant nor condescending, it was bitter.

[/\]

Natsuru noticed the landlord was out and about as she came back. She'd already paid through this month and next month so didn't expect to get too much gruff from him if she stopped in to say hello.

"Good evening." She said waving.

"Good evening, Natsuki. How are things?" He responded in a far more cheerful manner then she remembered. Her landlord' concept of nice was usually something more along the lines of a bitingly sarcastic "Keep it up Senou."

"Fine." She managed. She made her way to her apartment and had just put her key in the lock when she realized that the landlord had called her Natsuki, not Natsuru. Apparently the little stuffed tiger hadn't been kidding about that.

[/\]

Natsuru entered her apartment and placed the bags inside her room to put away later. The good news was that as far as her landlord was concerned he had apparently always been a female tenant… He'd let himself get a little too comfortable with this. He needed to be a little more conscious about that. At least his landlord was one less thing to worry about. Well as long as he just ignored that he'd effectively been written out of existence.

Tomorrow it would be back to work with the usual double shift. At least he was making more in tips even if that came with harassment of a nature he _really_ could do without right now.

"You're looking nice." He turned in the direction of the stuffed tiger, who was currently sitting on his futon.

"I'll take that as a compliment."

[/\]

"Hey, Natsuki." Megumi was a character. She always seemed to be full of energy. He'd even had a crush on her at one point, but she was almost too much for him to handle as friends. Come to think of it she didn't enthusiastically wave and greet just anyone like that...

"You know don't you…" Natsuru whispered conspiratorially as she drew close.

"About what Natsuki-san?" Yep, she knew. He knew her way too well to not clearly read her subtle hints that she knew, Of course, in true Megumi fashion she wasn't just going to come out and admit it. No that would remove all the "fun."

He seriously debated making out with her and declaring they were lesbian lovers, which showed just how much she had succeeded in corrupting him over the years. Then it occurred to him that she might decide it wasn't just theatre and proceed to take things to the next step. He looked to see Megumi blinking with those "innocent" eyes that told him she'd seen everything, thanks no doubt to her years worth of insight.

[/\]

Natsuru kept on a pleasant veneer, but was dreading their eventually ending up alone in changing room, which he knew was going to happen. Only it didn't. No, she gave him a little thumbs up as he left the changing room and a look that communicated clearly enough that they'd talk about this later.

So instead he spent his double shift being checked out, occasionally harassed and dreading whatever Megumi had up her sleeve. How he hated her so.

[/\]

"They seem to really like you, Natsuki." Megumi said with a pitying look as she tossed her a chilled soda from the workroom vending machine.

Whatever plans he had, had of snapping at her died then and there. As much as they might have tormented each other they were still friends. "Well at least it means I'm getting more tips." He said more to make conversation than anything else.

"You still don't remember do you?"

He blinked at the uncharacteristically somber tone.

"Yeah. I thought you'd be all ewww, and 'but I loved you.' " She kept going on for several minutes about what it was apparently supposed to be like while. None of it made any sense, but at least it meant that he'd still have one friend he could turn to. A half crazed friend that enjoyed making his life hell almost as often as it was fun, but…

"I mean really how would you react to me dropping a Bridget on you." Natsuru's ear perked up as that phrase went by amongst the continuing stream. She was a...

"You're a guy?" Natsuru was having a hard time wrapping his mind around how that could even be possible.

"Yeah, until a few years ago when I found this bunny." Megumi held up a white stuffed rabbit with a little plushie piece of entrails sticking out. "But it was okay because I realized I could just lay low, and we were still friends." And she kept going.

Natsuru sighed as the pieces started to fall together. A far as he knew Megumi really had no one else to talk to, especially about something like this. He also recalled some weird conversations along these lines around that time period, how she had started acting kind of weird, and now that he really looked at it his memories seemed to have been warped. He distinctly remembered being friends with Megumi for a long time, but there were a lot of particulars that were off. Like he remembered her taking an interest in photography starting in middle school, but couldn't remember her ever using a camera since the transition had occurred. Why that was evaded her attempts to reclaim.

Just like with… Only he knew Sakura had, had nothing to do with this. "It must have been hard for you."

"Yes, but it was okay because…" It could be worse. She was quirky, but it wasn't like she wasn't like she was insane. No, she was just a friend that hadn't had someone to talk to about her problems for a long time. And now she did.

[/\]

Revision Notes:

-The date has been fleshed out with a show instead of imply approach.

-Events have been restructured as appropriate.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer:

The property Kampfer, the doujins involving Shirou-ko and Archer-ko and through these Fate/Stay Night are referenced in this work. An active effort has been made to modify things so that plagiarism is avoided.

Characters are either references to fictional characters or are independently derived and hence any similarity to real persons is entirely coincidental.

[/\]

The birds were singing their various melodies this morning.

"Sakura can we talk?"

"Of course." She said cheerfully enough that she was almost chirping herself. "What would you like to talk about Natsuru?"

Natsuru steeled himself. "You modified my memory." He managed to get out, quietly.

Sakura looked at him in concern for a long moment before closing her eyes and sighing and snapping her fingers. Natsuru could feel the memories coming back.

"Thank you."

Sakura turned towards him with a melancholic smile, hugging her. "I wasn't trying to hurt you. You're important to me, you always have been."

"Sakura, you've always trusted me before, can you trust us to deal with things?"

Sakura's hand caressed Natsuru's cheek as Sakura looked at her with an interested look that had an odd piercing quality. "Okay. I'll trust you, but know that there are other things influencing us."

Natsuru's mind wandered to last night's little revelation, and its ramifications. He still wasn't sure what to think about that. While he could see how things fit together his mind refused to wrap itself around the idea that Megumi had originally been a guy.

"Are you ignoring me?" Sakura whispered playfully from next to her ear. She felt so intimately close.

Natsuru flushed, and managed stutter out an "I" before Sakura pulled away with a secretive smile. Following the direction of her gaze he noticed that the bus was coming.

[/\]

It'd been nice to sit with Sakura and just talk. They hadn't talked about anything important and it certainly wasn't like they hadn't talked like this before, but that had been before Sakura had taken her on a date. Now they were a couple, and she kept catching herself because she'd stopped listening to what Sakura was saying to just look at her.

"We're here." Sakura said smiling.

Natsuru blinked. Oh… right. She awkwardly got up and stepped back to let Sakura out first.

"Thank you." Sakura said with a glowing smile.

Natsuru trailed behind her thoughts having little to do with buses or schools. She'd just gotten off the bus when an arm blocked her way. Looking around she noticed that Sakura was no longer in sight and turned towards the person who had seen fit to obstruct his path.

"You have been summoned."

The woman simply stood there with her hands at her side. She was something that Natsuru was only familiar with through rumors about a white haired ghost thing that haunted the campus and preyed on people who did something. He had normally tuned out around that point, as it was always something stupid. This woman appeared to be quite solid, with a subdued air of menace. It wasn't hard for him to see why there would be such rumors, as she looked utterly unnatural.

Her long pinkish white hair had been woven into a tight braid that had been laid over her shoulder, the pink emphasized by her unnaturally pale skin. The paleness of her skin in turn being thrown into stark contrast thanks to her wearing a dark black outfit that was only punctuated by an odd red garment that looked like someone had decided to take a shot cloak and make a minimal effort to give it sleeves. Where the garment ended up bordering on the fringe of the woman's chest and cord that held it "closed" serving in turn to emphasize the woman's rather substantial breasts.

Natsuru realized he was staring, which he felt doubly bad about as she was so… dignified. "I don't understand."

"Follow." She turned and began walking. Natsuru debated simply defying the direction for a moment, but his curiosity got the better of him. After everything he'd had to deal with in the past three days, something this relatively benign was almost refreshing.

Rushing up alongside the strange woman, he asked. "Just who are you?"

She just barely glanced his way, and simply said "You may call me Emi."

Natsuru walked along for several moments at a loss for anything that seemed appropriate to say. Most of his questions seemed like they'd just be rude.

"You won't be harmed." The way she said it implied to him that there was an expectation someone was liable to try, and Emi at least intended to protect him. Natsuru squashed an emotional reaction he wasn't going to take ownership of, and began visual scanning. While he's never had much, that didn't mean he'd always been able to live places there wasn't a real issue of people deciding that what little he had was worth taking. He had learned that other people couldn't protect you the hard way.

[/\]

The walk however was utterly uneventful with them not even seeing that many people along the way, before ending in this excessively large office. Natsuru was pretty sure it was actually larger than his entire apartment, and despite having all that space it didn't really have anything in it except an oversized desk at which was sitting the infamous Student President. A large portion of the male student body considered her to be the hottest girl in school. He couldn't say he ever saw it. She was rich bitch with a not exactly hidden tendency to use people in an utterly cavalier way.

Still he could go through the motions of showing respect when it was due. He made a slight bow. "Good Morning, Student President."

She looked at him for several moments, which he was pretty sure were supposed to soften him up based on involving an uncomfortable silence. It might even have worked if he actually cared about StuGo's antics. He was more liable to be bored than anything else.

"Do you know why I called you here today?" Stupid leading questions, oh joy.

"No, but I was getting worried you were going to declare your undying love for me." He really wasn't in the humoring mood right now. He had, had more than enough crap to deal with this past week without playing the princess' games.

She smirked in response, before lazily slinking out of her chair and walking to within a few feet of him. "You don't like me, do you?" Her tone was almost mocking in its utter dismissal.

"You use people, and throw them away like they're trash." Natsuru could help but gesture accusingly at her, his voice full of disdain at the utter injustice of it all.

Her response was a short laugh that Natsuru could almost feel the woman standing to his right stiffen in response to. "You speak your mind, I like that about you." She then slunk back towards her desk.

"She may go." She waved dismissively in their direction.

Natsuru couldn't wait to hear the door close behind him. "What does she have on you, Emi?" He couldn't help but let a little bit of his anger towards the Student President's antics bleed into his voice.

Emi didn't even slightly turn in his direction, although once again he could almost feel the woman stiffen in response. It was the weirdest sensation.

"I might not be the best judge of character, but I know how Shizuku works and I'm pretty sure you aren't shallow enough to fall for her usual tricks." Natsuru pushed.

"You seem to know her rather well." There was a degree of ironic amusement in her response.

"Not directly, but I'm a friend of someone who has been her friend for years and I hear things."

"She's not a saint, but she maintains the peace." That didn't sound like a reason so much as an excuse. And really what kind of StuGo bullshit had she been sold that...

"She's a Kampfer." Natsuru blurted it out before his mind caught up with him. Still not mindful of his current audience he mused. "Of course she's a Kampfer."

"You just now realized that?" The question was more in wonderment then condemnation. Natsuru did a worse job of hiding that he had been startled then he'd prefer to admit to.

Another realization based on the consequences of that fact occurred to him, and he instantly wheeled around and ripped that stupid overly fancy and ornate door open. "You're a Kampfer, aren't you?"

"I thought we already established that." The Student President was completely non-plushed by the outburst or his striding up to her desk.

"So screwing with your admirers' heads isn't enough, you have to murder people too?" He was pissed, he was really pissed.

"Of course not, that's what minions are for." Her response was so matter of fact, dismissive, and of the tone of someone who was explaining something to someone mentally slow that they looked down upon.

Natsuru formed a fireball and prepared to throw it before he even thought about it, but a hand caught his wrist before he was in a position to throw holding it in an iron grip. Looking at the source of the restraint Natsuru saw that it was Emi. Looking at her arm she realized that not only was she holding a fireball but that she was literally on fire. She stared in confusion at the licking flames that engulfed her and as it began to click in her mind they went out.

"You seem to be rather naïve, Ms. Senou. Let's start with your immediate concern. What concerns you so much about the fact, as you would put it, that I 'use' people?" The Student President had the absolute gall to be completely nonplussed, and act like he was somehow wronged headed for recognizing that using and exploiting people was wrong.

Natsuru turned on her, her rage back in force. "What's wrong with you? What do you mean what concerns me so much about it? You twist people's feelings and treat them as something expendable and you need me to give you specifics?"

"They are enamored with me, and are willing to do things for me to show their dedication. Why shouldn't I allow them to exercise their desires towards productive ends?" She said like it was simply the way of things, and if anything something to be applauded.

Just how messed up was she that she could say something like that with a straight face? Her next outburst however was stopped as a hand clamped down on her mouth. She started to violently struggle but noticed the sleeve was dark black, and decided to stop.

"I'm sure you have more important things to be doing Madam President." Emi said from behind her, pulling her backwards.

The president had an odd grin and looked like she was going to say something to the contrary, when a messenger rushed in distracting her. Emi made good on the opportunity, and they were quickly outside the door.

"That was foolish." Emi said before letting her go. Natsuru didn't move much, and was trying hard to not take ownership of actually being unhappy that Emi wasn't holding her anymore. "You're lucky she considers you harmless, and was in the mood to find you amusing. She's killed people for far less."

"I guess I should go then."

[/\]

Natsuru stormed out of the stupid Student President's building. If he wasn't a peace loving newbie he'd have killed her right there and done humanity a favor. What kind of abomination was she that she could even see things in those kinds of terms? She wasn't exploiting them, she was simply giving them the opportunity to serve her high and mighty self indeed. And why would Emi hang out with and defend someone like that? And… Natsuru slammed into something while walking full tilt, which gave way under him causing both of them to fall.

What had that been about? Looking around Natsuru noticed that a girl with white hair was lying under her and lightly groaning in pain. Recognition slowly dawned on him as he helped her up, it was the Spider. Reflexively manifesting a fireball, Natsuru gave himself some distance.

"You're not going to try to kill me again are you?" There was more fear and desperation in his voice then he would have liked, but the mix of that and the rest sounded more psychotic then anything so good enough.

The Spider blinked at her as if it was a completely foreign concept. "Nobody goes up against the Guardian or the Queens."

"The Queens?" Natsuru asked skeptically. Calling Yureka the Guardian he could kind of buy, but what was this about "Queens?"

"Yeah, the Red Queen, the Blue Queen, you know the masters of sword and sorcery." She said it like this was something he should know already. That it was something it was commonly accepted knowledge that everyone knew it, and the thought of not knowing about it was an utterly foreign concept.

Natsuru stared at her blankly trying to make sense of what she was saying, and failing.

"It's good that you look so good, and smell so nice. You're clearly not getting by in the brains department." The Spider observed.

Natsuru decided to ignore the slight, and focus on the weird part. "I'm sorry, I smell so nice?"

The Spider raised an eyebrow and drawing closer sniffed. "Yeah, don't decide to stop bathing but your scent turns me on."

Okaaay. Changing the subject, now. "What was that you were saying about the Queens?"

"Well the Red Queen is the master of combat. The current Red Queen is a Zauber specializing in the ability to use her magic to create various weapons. You can spot her real easy because she wears this red coat. Then there's the Blue Queen. The current Blue Queen is a Zauber specializing in Elemental Magic. She wears this blue coat, and all the runner ups have various ways of displaying their color and ranks. That's none of my business though. I'm just trying to survive.

What does it matter how you rank if all that comes of it is you set yourself up to be attacked? There's always going to be someone stronger then you. You might as well just go ahead and slit your wrists yourself."

"What about Shizuku?" Might as well check in on that while he was digging up information.

"The Student President? Word of advice. Don't screw with her. She's the one in charge of this whole damn operation. You cross her and you're liable to disappear." The Spider showed legitimate concern and fear over her even being brought up. Then apparently noticing the pause she immediately transferred to a very different attitude. "So, do you want to make out?"

"Wha?" Natsuru started slowly backing away. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me and all that.

The Spider wasn't the least bit deterred by his retreat, and continued to pursue until Natsuru found his back to a tree. Before he could really process that his avenue of retreat was obstructed the Spider pounced. Unlike last time it did not end with a pair of fangs sinking in to his shoulder. This time the Spider seemed a lot more interested in smelling her then hurting her.

"You really do smell nice." She said airily. "But you wouldn't survive five minutes against a real threat." She followed up in a much more level headed voice, pulling back. "Call me sometime." She walked away, and Natsuru noticed that a piece of paper was in his hand.

[/\]

Yureka showed up on scene to find Team Sigma wasn't currently in a fire fight with a single Kampfer that was spraying bullets everywhere. Bullets zipped and ricochets glanced off nearby pieces of concrete and stone with distinctive twangs. For one person with nothing more than a pistol she was lying down a rather impressive amount of fire. None of it was particularly accurate or purposeful, but the almost random stream of fire was creating a rather obnoxious threat.

"What's the situation?" She called.

Calico glanced towards her from her position of cover. "Three dead, five wounded. She'd holed herself up behind that cement garden, and seems to realize we can mow her down if she moves." She fired a short burst in the direction of said cement garden as if to emphasize the point.

Cheshire continued to lay there looking through her scope. "Looks like she got a little vengeance and then panicked when we made her aware she wasn't the only one on the block that could kill people. We've kept her alive but suppressed, just like you prefer boss."

"I'll handle it from here, good job you two."

Yureka proceeded towards the miscreant who'd decided to try to shoot up the bus stop this morning, a visible double proceeding along the more obvious path.

"You can't win you know." The double called in the direction the girl was hiding.

"Fuck you, bitch!" She called while poking her gun out and blindly randomly spraying

Yeah, yeah fuck me. Could she at least pretend to be inventive to come up with something that could be really called an insult? What was she, three that she was so impressed with the fact she could verbalize dirty words that others didn't appreciate her saying? Yeah, yeah look at me I'm so special because I can be a nasty little twerp.

Yureka began to close the distance moving among the low cement structures, and using them for cover. Random bullets were random, and there was no reason to subject herself to that. Usually they were a little more cagey about not letting themselves get fixed in a position, but this newbie didn't appear to have budged and was just continuing to wildly spray bullets as fast as she could reload. As Yureka rounded the last corner her suspicions were confirmed. The girl was clearly panicking. It was almost too easy.

Grab gun, twist out, left hook and she dropped into her arms like a sack of flour. Yureka extended the cloak. As such things went things were going rather well. The redhead was for all intents and purposes unconscious, unarmed, and by a rank amateur's definition neutralized. A little rummaging netted her wallet.

She was one Akane Makashima. Based on her picture she looked like she was a meek type before the transformation. That made sense. As they said it was always the quiet ones. They were the ones that held their anger and aggression in most being unable to effectively express themselves against the injustices wrought against them, and were thus least able to deal with it when unchained.

Cute girl, all things considered. She almost felt bad that they were going to need some alone time to straighten out why you did not try to shoot up the school. At least casualties had been relatively light, although they might need to add one to that list as a fatality if someone decided they weren't going to learn some control.

She looked at the pistol in her hand that was almost too hot to hold through the wooden grips. Magically summoned and reinforced weapon or no, girl had been well on her way to having an accident. Definitely panicked.

[/\]

"Hey Natsuki." Natsuru smiled as Sakura walked into his classroom. It had been weird the way no one seemed to consider him being a girl out of the ordinary. Apparently the guys remembered "her" to be someone who turned them down quickly, and didn't really humor flirting. A few girls he couldn't remember taking note of however were now apparently "her" friends. That had involved a variety of conversations he could have lived without hearing.

Harikiri Tiger has apparently meant it when he said there was paperwork for a Natsuki Senou now, as everyone insisted on calling him that and didn't understand why he asked about Natsuru. He'd decided to keep his mouth shut after "Natsuki's" "friends" had begun speculating about what school Natsuru went to, treating this mysterious person as if her was "Natsuki's" crush. Whoever these "sponsors" were and whatever their goals were they demonstrated capabilities that were rather disturbing in their implications given how casually they could be employed.

"Aww…" Miyami said clearly recognizing the Sakura showing up meant that "Natsuki" wasn't going to be hanging out with them for a while. At this point Natsuru was happy to leave.

[/\]

Hitomi showed up on the way to the cafeteria and joined their group despite encouragement to the contrary. She seemed utterly oblivious to the concept she and Sakura might want some time to themselves. Of course, Sakura was accommodating her in that…

"What are you looking so down about?" Hitomi asked looking straight at him.

"Natsuki can be a little shy. She probably wanted to talk about some things she's intimidated to talk about in front of you." Sakura said with a smile.

Hitomi looked troubled by that.

[/\]

The basement was predictably dimly lit with dull exposed steel I-beams, various pipes, and unadorned concrete making up the décor. About halfway through lunch Hitomi had insisted that she needed to talk with her a moment, and when they were out of the earshot of eavesdroppers the Yureka needed them to see something in the basement. Hence here they were in an area of the building most students avoided.

Chained up against one of the metal I-beams was a girl. There was a bruise on her right jaw bone, and her head was down with her short red hair cascading down and obscuring her features. Yureka was sitting at a desk next to her with an open notebook.

"Isn't that a little excessive?" Natsuru asked his companion.

Hitomi looked at him, at the restraints, and back to him. "You'd be surprised. For a newbie Gewehr it's not strictly necessary, but there's no reason to needlessly endanger ourselves."

As they drew close Yureka stoof up an turned towards them. "This is Akane Makashima." Yureka said while handing over the girl's student ID, which looked nothing like her. "She shot eleven people while you were away talking with the Student President. Three of them are now in the morgue and five are being hospitalized. Everyone who's not a Kampfer had either already forgotten about it or remembers it as chaotic bit of gang violence with no clear memory of the particulars like when or where it occurred. What do you make of this?"

Natsuru looked at the girl. She was dirty and… Natsuru realized that she was awake and looked was very uncomfortable, her muscles clearly beginning to strain.

"She should be put down like the dog she is." Hitomi said simply.

"Why is she chained up like that?" Natsuru asked.

Hitomi turned in her direction and looked at her like she was an idiot. "Because she's a dangerous murderer, Natsuki."

"Partially correct." Yureka said before releasing the locks, and catching the girl before she had the opportunity to fall. "I think you've made your opinion on matters clear Hitomi. What's yours Natsuki?"

"Why'd she do it?" He asked noting that the girl seemed to have snuggled up to Yureka and fallen asleep.

"That's a good question, and one I've spent the last three hours talking to her about. Up until yesterday she was a shy introverted girl that few people noticed, and spent most of her time escaping into books, and most of those who did notice her were of the bully variety. Last night she received a visitor that shall we say, gave her some confidence? And suddenly all that aggression and nasty thoughts she'd been internalizing weren't internal anymore and she had the power to express them.

And the externalizing of that is what happened this morning. She's calmed down quite a bit now that she finally has someone to talk to." Natsuru noted that Yureka had started rubbing the unconscious smaller girl's back.

"You're going to let her go." Natsuru observed.

Yureka smiled and started to say something before Hitomi interrupted. "Why would Yureka let her go? She's a murderer."

"Maybe because I'm more of a murderer then her." Yureka interjected.

"That's different, you" Yureka cut her off before Hitomi could finish the sentence.

"She realized what she did is wrong and is no longer a threat. If we killed every Kampfer that murdered someone we wouldn't have very many left, Hitomi. She'll be watched closely over the next few weeks, as is our way."

Natsuru could see that Hitomi's fist was balled up. "Yes, Ma'am." She gritted out.

[/\]

Mhmmm it felt warm. Akane latched on to something soft that was nearby. It felt nice.

"Finally decided to wake up sleepyhead?" A gentle voice called. Something accommodated her head as she pulled the nice thing closer. Mhmmm.

After several minutes passed she blinked and opened her eyes. Recognition of her tiled surroundings came quickly, and she suddenly recognized the feeling of warm water around her. Glancing up she saw the face of the raven haired girl from before, and realized she was hugging her tightly.

"Where are we?" She asked, not budging from her position.

"You needed a bath, so I took you to a bath." The raven haired girl responded simply.

"Thank you." Akane felt hands begin to work at the tense muscles of her back.

[/\]

Hitomi was waiting for her as she left the school. "I guess I forgot that you're not my partner just because Yureka said so. So let's hang out sometime and get to know each other better. I want us to be able to trust each other."

That's not quite what he expected, but okay. "When would you like to hang out?"

"How about we go to the mall this weekend?" She asked.

"Okay." He agreed.

As she began to walk off Sakura walked up. "I was thinking us going on another date this weekend."

Sakura picked up on his pained expression and glanced in the direction of Hitomi's retreating form. "Did _she_ ask you to hang out with her this weekend?"

"Yes." Answered quietly as Sakura leaned in closer studying her.

"Do you like her?" Implicit in the question was whether he liked her more than Sakura.

"Not like that. I…"

"You're cute when you're embarrassed." She gave him a quick kiss on the lips. "I'll walk you home Friday afterschool." Her voice making it clear that they'd be a lot more then walking. As he was trying to process that she grabbed his hand and started walking towards the gate.

[/\]

"You're being rather clingy." Yureka noted as the red head made a point to sit right next to her.

"You don't like me?" The redhead looked troubled.

Yureka gently cupped the redhead's chin. "You've got it rather bad don't you?"

She flushed almost as red as her hair. Yureka tried to smile comfortingly, but was sure it was off. "You remind me of me. Back when I was starting out I was invisible to my peers, and then after a visit from a stuffed animal I could literally become invisible. I tried to lay low, but I caught the attention of someone I thought was nice."

After a few minutes of quiet the redhead looked at her. "What happened to her?"

Yureka shrugged. "I don't know. The last thing I remember is coming to my senses while standing in a room full of corpses three years ago. I used the address I found in a wallet I was carrying to find an apartment I was carrying a key to, which had a journal the last entry talked about going to that girl's house ten years ago. Something to think about."

Things were quiet for a few minutes while they ate, and then the redhead asked. "Do you have someone special?"

"Not in the sense you mean." Yureka said simply.

The redhead leaned against her. Yureka looked at her and noticed Akane had closed her eyes and was looking rather content. "Does a little understanding really justify all this, Akane?"

In response, Akane pulled her close. "You're not being very honest. You didn't take me to the bath and invite me here just because you felt understanding." She began drawing closer. "I'm not a mousey brunette anymore." Their lips were almost touching. "I'm a _red_ _hot_ _redhead_." Akane kissed her aggressively.

[/\]

"You looked like you were doing better today Natsuki."

"I guess I'm starting to get used to it."

Megumi regarded her with a cautious expression. "Just don't let yourself get too used to it."

Natsuru looked at her for a long moment. "What happened to you?"

Megumi looked at her for a moment before smiling. "I'll show you if you'll come by my place."

"Okay."

[/\]

Megumi opened the door revealing a décor that was rather unique, to say the least. On one side there was a relatively new electronic video camera hooked up to a laptop showing various pictures of girls he did and did not recognize from campus. Many of which were either action shots, or compromising in nature. On the actual wall several posters for various high profile action movies were taped to the wall. On the other side with the futon was a stuffed animal, and a shelf full of mahou shoujo anime.

Something about that video camera and the movies the posters were associated with seemed very familiar. He also got the impression he'd been forced to watch several of those magical girl titles, and that Nanoha had actually turned out to be awesome by the second season. All of which was here in the shelf, nicely ordered and organized. That left him wondering who he had seen all of that with, or for that matter when. It didn't seem like something he would have went out of his way to see or been particularly interested in.

He certainly didn't own any anime DVDs, or for that matter a television. He'd bought a slightly used computer off a gamer when he'd cycled his systems for the latest and greatest for practically nothing, and had internet access through his landlord but that was about it. It gave him the ability to keep on the latest news, write up various school reports, and do other things...

"So do you remember me forcing you to watch those?"

Natsuru took a moment to process that. On the face of it, it didn't make any sense. Sure Megumi was a tomboy, energetic, and had always been getting him into trouble but why would he have watched anime together with her. The thought that Megumi had not always been Megumi intruded, and for an instant he almost saw a dark haired boy standing in her place, but it rapidly faded.

"No. Did we do that?"

Megumi looked uncharacteristically sheepish. "Yeah, I used to run what I called the bishoujo research club. My hobby was cataloguing and researching all the hot girls on campus."

"So in other words you were a creepy pervert." Natsuru deadpanned.

"Yeah." Megumi looked away and seemed like she was trying to recapture something. Not one to invade upon other's weird mental fantasies, Natsuru left her to it.

Given the information he had just been given he could begin to piece things together, although it still didn't feel right that Megumi had ever been anyone other than Megumi. Perhaps it was better to think of her as Higashida at the moment, to help him try to comprehend who she had been, without the lens of who she was now. So… Higashida had been a pervy guy that was big on taking pictures of girls, researching the girls on campus, and magical girl anime. Okay, really going to need to decouple the brain for this one.

Higashida had for some reason been friends with him, probably so he could have a fall man. This included him going along with watching various action movies Higashida had wanted to see, and watching his rather expansive magical girl anime collection. Best not to dwell on the whys of it all, when wrapping his brain around the concept Megumi had been a guy refused to stick. He wouldn't be able to operate with enough perspective to draw anything that'd resemble rational explanations, under the circumstances. The more important aspect of all this wasn't really who Higashida had been afterall. It was to get a better understanding of just what he was up against here. What had happened to Higashida, and how long he had before similar things started happening to him.

Author's Notes:

This was delayed due to a combination of underestimating the work associated with finishing this chapter and reworking the previous ones, and RL workloads.

I must admit I'm surprised there was so much confusion over who the Spider and Megumi were, but then I'm the one crafting the story and I was going for something of a reveal. Outside of Mikoto's transformed form there is exactly one character with what would be characterized as white hair, and that's the Vice Rep. The implication in turn was that she was paired with the other two, who she back stabbed before the beginning of the story. Similarly Natsuru in turn with most of the available media has exactly one male friend, aka Kenji Higashida.

Shizuku fans feel free to let me know your thoughts, now that she's been introduced.


End file.
